


How to Win the War

by atamascolily



Category: Terminator (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22043452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: John Connor offers what comfort and kindness he can to Miles Dyson's son Danny after Sarah attacks the Dyson home.(A missing scene fromTerminator 2: Judgment Day.)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10





	How to Win the War

**Author's Note:**

> So the first time I watched T2, I thought "Oh, John Connor is _such_ a little punk,"--but on subsequent re-watch, I noticed the way he gracefully maneuvers Danny Dyson out of the room before the Terminator reveals his true identity to the elder Dysons by slicing his arm open. It's such a small, understated thing, but he knows Danny's name, and I thought, "Oh, this dude is a natural leader. And kind, too. What a decent and tactful thing thing to do." And then I liked John Connor much more now than I did, and this fic happened.

Having seen to his mother--now collapsed in a shaking heap in the corner of the Dyson's living room--it's left to John Connor to salvage the mess she's made as best he can. The Terminator is instructing Tarissa Dyson in how to stop her husband's bleeding, but it's only a matter of time before they start asking questions that John needs to answer. 

Sure enough, as the Terminator steps back, Miles Dyson gasps, "Who _are_ you people?" 

There's only one possible response that will convince the Dysons to believe them, and it's an ugly one. John pulls the switchblade out of his pocket, flicks it open, and hands it to the Terminator. "Show 'em," he orders, before crossing the room to kneel down besides Dyson's son. 

He's grateful now for all the files the Terminator has on the Dyson family. There was nothing else to do except listen to the T-800 recite them on the long drive north from the border. Besides, Mom always said that knowledge was the key to any successful tactical engagement. Knowledge was what kept you alive--you and anyone under your (hypothetical) command. 

He'd hoped to stop her long before he needed to _use_ any of this information. But even with a Terminator at the wheel, there was only so much they could do to catch up. 

"Danny, I want you to come with me right now," he says slowly and calmly to Dyson's son--seven years two weeks ago, according to the T-800's files. "Show me your room." 

It's not a request, but he phrases the command as kindly as he can, even as he scoops the kid to his feet and towards the door. Danny's already had enough trauma today with his father get shot in front of him; he doesn't need to see this, too. 

As he steers Danny out of the room, the Terminator catches his eye, and John nods once in acknowledgment. _Do it just like we planned._ Now that Sarah has dragged the Dysons into this, they have to know the truth; there's no going back now. 

John and Danny are barely out of the room when Tarissa and Miles gasp in shock and horror; the Terminator didn't waste any time when it came to peeling its own flesh off. John asks Danny where his room is, loudly, hoping the kid won't believe his parents are dying in the living room after all. 

"It's upstairs." Danny is trembling and John can't blame him. "Are Mommy and Daddy gonna be okay?"

"They're fine," John says. 

"The scary man isn't going to hurt my daddy?" 

"No, he's not," John says firmly. "He's my friend. He doesn't kill people." 

That, at least, he can feel certain about, if only because the T-800 is programmed to obey him. Would that Sarah Conner were so easily persuadable. 

Danny isn't satisfied. "What about the scary lady?"

"'The scary lady' is my mom. She's... sick," he says at last, not knowing how else to describe her. 

He changes the subject, asking about hobbies, school, fun, whatever comes to mind. Anything to keep Danny talking, distract him from the horror he's just witnessed. Kids are resilient, and they mirror the people around them. If all goes well, there's a good chance the Dyson family may yet recover from the violence that's shattered their lives. 

Maybe. John knows better than to make any promises or reassurances he won't be able to keep, even to himself. 

The house is so big. There are Bolivian fishing villages smaller than this house. John and Sarah lived in one for three weeks before Sarah got them kicked out. Danny leads him up a staircase and around a corner, and the hallway just keeps going on and on. 

They pass a door with pink Lisa Frank stickers that must be his sister Blythe's room. John makes a mental note to check on her once Danny is safely in bed. She's probably asleep, or else they'd have seen her, but it's good to be sure. 

Danny's bedroom is the last one in that endless hallway, on the left. Danny turns on the light to reveal action figures scattered everywhere, an entire fleet of remote-controlled cars of varying makes and models, and Hot Wheels posters tacked to every surface. John nods with satisfaction, perfectly at home in the chaos. 

"Let's get your pajamas on, okay?" he says. "Show me where those are."

He bustles Danny through changing his clothes and examines the discarded ones carefully. No bloodstains, thankfully. The last thing anyone needs is more evidence of his mother's work. He balls them up and tosses them in the overflowing laundry basket in the corner. 

Meanwhile, Danny brushes his teeth in the attached bathroom that John can't help but admire in passing. He didn't know about indoor plumbing until he was Danny's age, let alone have a bathroom all to himself. Living on the run in Central America taught you never to take a flush toilet for granted. 

Before he gets into bed, Danny shows John his favorite stuffed animal--a ragged-looking bear named (what else?) Barry. He clutches Barry like a magic talisman, one that will make everything better, staring up at John with wide eyes. 

"Why did your mom try to kill my daddy?" 

"It was a mistake," John says without hesitation. He takes Danny's hand in both of his and looks him in the eye. "A bad guy hurt her a long time ago. She got scared, and thought your daddy was one of the bad guys, but she made a mistake. He's a good guy. He's going to help us make things right." 

"I don't want anyone to hurt my daddy," Danny says. 

"Neither do I. Like I said, it was a mistake. My mom's not going to try to hurt your daddy again. " 

John's heart aches. He's ashamed Danny had to witness Sarah Connor's violent breakdown--but grateful that she hadn't been able to go through with killing Miles Dyson after all. She'd stood down even before John and the Terminator had arrived on the scene. Sarah remembered that you weren't supposed to kill people, especially when they hadn't done anything to you first. She knew what the right thing to do was. She'd just gotten confused, that was all.

"Promise?" Danny whimpers. 

"I promise," John says, and means it. He knows what it's like to grow up without a father. He hopes like hell that won't happen to Danny Dyson before all is said and done. 

"Cross your heart and hope to die?" 

He duly crosses his heart, and mimes sticking a needle through his eye. This reassures Danny enough to close his own and nestle with Barry in the blankets, but reminds John all too much of the robot from the future dismantling and reassembling itself downstairs. 

Whatever else happens with Miles and Cyberdyne, John doesn't want this little boy to grow up plotting his revenge against the Connors. It's good tactics, yes, but it's also the _right_ thing to do, the decent thing, the _human_ thing. Nobody deserves to hurt like that. 

Danny may be small right and weak now, but people change. Just look at Sarah Connor. John still has the photograph of her right after Skynet send a Terminator back to kill him, back when she was still a wet-behind-the-ears waitress who barely knew anything about guns or field dressing. She's different now. A lot different. 

John knows deep in his bones, even if he's not quite sure how to articulate it, that life isn't a zero-sum game. Only machines make all or nothing choices, because they don't know any better. And _they_ don't know, because the humans who made them don't know, either, even though they should. 

It's easy to hurt people. He saw that firsthand back when the Terminator shot that man in the parking lot, the one who thought he was doing John a favor by trying to rescue him after John cried wolf. Doing the right thing is harder ( _not_ the same as obeying the law, the laws are stupid) but it's the best way to make other people want to help _you_. Why couldn't his mom see that earlier, _before_ she had a gun pointed at a trembling man, surrounded by his wife and son?

Maybe it was like that moment in the parking lot when he realized the Terminator wasn't a toy, but a weapon that could and would hurt people if John wasn't careful--and it would be all his fault. Maybe Sarah had been so blinded by her drive to protect him and defeat the machines that she'd lost sight of what she was really fighting for. She wouldn't make that mistake again--just like he wouldn't. Once was enough. He was sure of it. 

John sits with Danny for a few more minutes until the kid's breathing slows. Then he turns off the lights and eases his way out of the room. 

He shuts the door softly behind him, and pads down the hall to the door covered in rainbow stickers, listening for sounds of movement inside. Silence. A faint, gentle snoring. 

Thank goodness Blythe's room is on the other side of the house from the scuffle, which muffled the gunshots and breaking glass. Thank goodness she's still asleep. Thank goodness for an early bedtime. Thank goodness John only walked in to find _one_ terrified child crouched over their father instead of two. 

Thank goodness his mom's all right, and no one died. Thank goodness they still have a chance to take down Cyberdyne the _right_ way. 

By the time he makes it back to the kitchen, things have calmed down, but the atmosphere is still tense. His mother sits on the pristine white-tiled countertop, her combat boots propped on a chair. Miles's wound is bandaged, and he and wife sit at the dining room table across from the T-800. They don't look or acknowledge Sarah at all--they're too busy listening to the stoic robot calmly explaining the situation, following every word as if their lives depend on his words. 

Which is good, because they do. Everyone's lives, really, if his mom is right about the nuclear apocalypse coming up. Since she was right about the robot assassins, John's inclined to believe her on that one, too. 

Without bothering to ask for permission, he fishes a clean glass out of the open dishwasher and rummages through the fridge until he found the orange juice. He pours himself a glass, puts the orange juice back where he found it, and walks past his mother and the Dysons to perch on the the dining table next to the Terminator.

Sarah fishes a cigarette out from somewhere, lights a match, and starts smoking. She closes her eyes as she drags on the cigarette, lost in her own little world for a moment before eyeing Miles Dyson with a cold, dead-eyed stare. 

There's no question in John Connor's mind that he loves his mother--no question at all about that. But she's crazy. He always thought she was crazy, since she shot up the computer factory and got taken away to Pescadero, but now she's crazy now in a different way than she ever was before. They did something to her at the hospital. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was something else, but she wasn't the same anymore--or maybe she was, and he just hadn't realized it before. 

She was still obsessed with destroying Cyberdyne before the hospital, but she hadn't tried to kill any _people_ in that attack. Only the machines. 

Machines were different, especially the bad ones from the future that were trying to kill you. You could hurt machines and still be a good person; it wasn't like hurting people. You had to draw the line somewhere. 

You couldn't kill people just because they might do something bad in the future. You just _couldn't_ kill people, period. Otherwise, the cycle would never, ever stop. Otherwise, you'd be no different than Skynet, going to so much effort to kill _John_ before he was even born. 

John knows intuitively there's a way out of this tangle, but it isn't easy. It means caring about human lives, the way Skynet never could. It means taking care of everyone, whether you want to or not, for as long as you can. It means stopping the cycle of violence and revenge, instead of taking the easy way out. It means choosing differently, even if it's hard. _Especially_ if it's hard. 

Maybe that wouldn't be enough to change fate, maybe not. There's only one way to find out. The adults may not realize it yet, but John Connor is running the show. 

This is how he'll win the war, he decides--not yet realizing that, in that moment, the war is already won.


End file.
